Maya Brown was a hardworking nineteen year old waitress when she met Jamie Forbes, an equally hardworking landscaper who was nearly fifteen years her senior. Their relationship was never meant to be anything serious, they were both seeing other people inbetween their initial hookup and the time that Maya found out that she was pregnant. She was never positive that it was Jamie's but the timing fit and he was the wealthiest of the prospective fathers so she confronted him with the news. With Jamie feeling like it was the responsible thing to do and Maya confessing to him that her strict Southern Baptist parents would disown her if she didn't marry the father of her child, the couple were married in a quiet ceremony in Spring, Texas during the fall of 1981. Six months later Duszenia Anaiya Forbes, affectionately called 'Duzi' when her parents realized she'd never be able to pronounce her full first name for a few years, was born. Maya frequently tells everyone that she just knew that her daughter had "something special". Their second child, another daughter named Zara, never received the same "something special" treatment that Duzi had.

The small Forbes family spent most of the 80's moving in and around the Houston area, going wherever Jamie's business would take him. In 1992, the family finally settled down in Victoria, Texas on a decent sized piece of property. Jamie's plan was to turn those twenty-something acres in to land for his daughter's to have families on one day but that was never part of Maya's plans. Duzi was always entered in beauty pageants and talent shows and anything else that her mother could put her in to, usually by coercion until Duzi discovered that she loved performing, especially dancing.

While she enjoyed performing, Duszenia severely lacked in personal confidence whenever she was in front of a crowd larger than her parents and her sister so she started making friends with other girls from the area who also liked to dance and/or sing. Maya continued pushing the group of girls in to talent shows and made sure to record every performance and even paid for the girls to record a few demos to send off to record labels. Duzi never thought anything would come from her mom's "plans for the future" but, in the Spring of 1996, the girl group was signed by a record label and shipped off to Los Angeles with Maya to start work on their first album. Unfortunately, after just two weeks in LA, the girls were swiftly dropped from the label after a dispute that Maya had with the fine print and were back home in Victoria the next day. While Duzi and her three friends were upset at the rejection and wanted to go back to their normal life, Maya wouldn't take "no" for an answer and kept sending demos to other labels and talent agencies until another label made an offer and signed the girls in 1997.

That led to their debut album being released under the group name of 'Dilemma' in 1998. Duzi's mother took control of the group's management by the time their second album was coming out and she shuffled around the lineup a few times before she was happy with it for the third album. They were all told a nice story to tell the press when asked about the lineup changes but word got out that the girls were difficult to work with and demanding divas. Which wasn't completely untrue - young girls being exposed to the world of fame and fortune did have a negative affect on them. But they never had any major fights between them and the only reason for the lineup change was for Maya to make sure that her daughter was the one shining the most in the group.

It was after the third album and quickly tossed together Christmas album in 2001 that Maya pitched the idea of a break for all of the girls to pursue solo endeavors and, of course, they all agreed. Duzi wanted to jump in to the film industry after her role in an MTV movie earlier in the year but her mom already had a few recording offers on the table for Duzi was well as another film role. So she agreed to record a solo album and join the third Austin Powers film as Foxxy Cleopatra because Duzi thought her mother knew what was best and was always game to go along with anything that her mom suggested.

After her successful solo campaign, Duzi and the other girls in Dilemma got back together for one final album and a tour before they announced that they were going on an indefinite break. That's when Duzi met her future husband, a fellow musician. He was perfect for her and she worshiped the ground he walked on. They married in 2005 and, less than two years later, they were signing divorce papers. Rumors of infidelity by both parties flew around the tabloids but neither of them wanted to talk about the reason why they split. Their marriage didn't work out because, at the time, neither one of them had enough time to devote to their relationship. It also didn't help that he wanted to start a family shortly after their wedding but Duzi was only twenty three and wanted to focus on her career before having children.

But while her personal life fell apart, her professional life continued to flourish with multiple Grammy nominations and wins for her second and third albums as well as a Golden Globe nomination for her role in Dreamgirls. It was right before recording her fourth album that Duzi announced she'd be replacing her mother with a new manager. It caused a lot of tension between Maya and Duszenia but she knew she couldn't have a business relationship with her mom because it was her mother. That and she saw through her mom's ulterior motives and didn't want to be her mom's pet project anymore.

Duzi was entirely thrilled with how her career was playing out after she released her fourth album in 2011 and she knew that it was time for a break from her career and wanted to take at least a year out of the spotlight and focus on her personal life and mending relationships, especially the one with her mom, that were neglected thanks to her constantly busy schedule. It was in December of 2011, shortly in to her break, that Duzi found out that she was pregnant with her first child by her then boyfriend. While she felt she was ready to become a mother, Duzi also contemplated ending the pregnancy because she wasn't sure how her career would be changed with the addition of a child and it took her father telling her that, while people reacted differently when they became parents, he wouldn't change becoming a father for anything in the world. So she decided that she would keep the baby and hope that she would be a great mother as well as a continue to have a love for performing.

In July of 2012, Duzi gave birth to her daughter, Asia. While she and Asia's father had decided to not continue their relationship a few months before their daughter was born, the pair have made sure to remain friendly and work together to raise their daughter. While they both have busy schedules, they share custody of Asia and do everything they can to give her the best life possible. And now that Duszenia has released her fifth album - and earned a few more Grammy nominations in the process - Duzi is again thinking of taking some time off away from the spotlight to watch her daughter grow up but instead of trying to make concrete plans or running off to some isolated location for a year or two, she's going to continue working on music and seeing where it takes her.